Hedgerow Theatre has long made a specialty of presenting Agatha
Christie's cozy English mysteries, and Christie's 1930 play Black
Coffee contains nearly all the ingredients that have made
her work so popular. If you're a Christie fan, you know what to
expectand Hedgerow delivers it with high spirits.

It's all about a murder, of coursebut first, there's what Alfred
Hitchcock liked to call a McGuffin. Here, it's the formula for a
forerunner of the atomic bomb, created by Sir Claude Amory (you knew
there'd be a "Sir Claude" in this, didn't you?). We're in the parlor
of his stately home outside London, where Sir Claude has decided to
give a speech about his invention to his family and guests. First he
locks all the doors, but nobody gets suspicious. Then he complains
"This coffee tastes bitter," but still nobody gets suspicious. Then
the brilliant detective Hercule Poirot shows up and discovers that Sir
Claude has died from whatever was in that coffee, and that the
McGuffin has disappeared. Finally, everybody is suspicious.

Sure, it's corny. The plot machinations, the functional but far
from scintillating dialogue, and the opening scene that lays out the
characters and their motivations in an obligatory manner won't be to
everybody's taste. And Christie's habit of simultaneously wallowing in
and mocking her characters' provincial prejudices can get tiresome.
But about halfway through act one, once Sir Claude's body is off the
stage and Poirot begins his interrogations in earnest, the plot starts
to get absorbing. And from that point on, Black Coffee becomes
a nice little romp. Like Christie's best work, it seems original and
familiar at the same time, and it's a kick to see Poirot fit all the
puzzle pieces in place.

Penelope Reed's sure-handed direction keeps everything running
smoothly. (However, the accents are hit and miss, and not just from
the supposed Brits; there are two Italian characters who sound like
they've traveled from Italy via the Paoli Local.) The performances are
all fine, but a few stand out, including Susan Wefel as a snooty
dowager and Maggie Cummings as a vivacious flapper who pursues
Poirot's sidekick Captain Hastings (the sturdy Dave Polgar). And Zoran
Kovcic, who has played Poirot on the Hedgerow stage many times over
the last two decades, holds Black Coffee together with the
authoritative air of a veteran sleuth who has seen it all but will see
it through until he sniffs out the killer.

This cup of Black Coffee could have been more stimulating,
but it goes down easy.

Black Coffee runs through November 13, 2011, at Hedgerow
Theatre, 64 Rose Valley Road, Rose Valley, Pennsylvania. Ticket prices
are $22 to $29, with discounts for seniors and children, and may be
purchased by calling the box office at 610-565-4211, online at
www.hedgerowtheatre.org or in person at the box office.

Michael Jansen and Philip J. Vonada

Villanova Theatre is presenting a production of Shakespeare's
The Comedy of Errors that takes the word "comedy" in its title
way too literally. Director Shawn Kairschner's production is trying
hard to be wacky and hip, but in the end, it just feels trying.

This version of The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare's tale of
two sets of identical twins and the confusion that they inadvertently
cause, is heavily edited, losing more than an hour of its running
time and clocking in at 90 minutes. That's not necessarily a bad
thing; I've seen good Shakespeare that was even shorter. But when you
cut out the dialogue and replace it with time-wasting nonsenselike
adding unfunny chase sequences solely to show actors running around
screaming for several minutes, or introducing the minor character of a
soothsayer with a dance number done to the tune of Screamin' Jay
Hawkins' "I Put a Spell On You"then you can't be said to be serving
the play well, if you're serving it at all.

Villanova's production gives you a lot to look at. Charlotte Cloe
Fox Wind's costumes borrow from multiple cultures, so we see people
dressed as cowboys, trappers, and fishermen; one man wears a sombrero,
while one woman wears go-go boots. And John Raley's set design is full
of off-kilter angles and oddly shaped doors and windows; panels open
up like the joke wall on "Laugh-In," allowing the actors to pop out
and deliver their lines. There's a lot to take in. But it all seems
too busy. And so is the rest of the production, which is stocked with
actors who mug impressively but rarely scratch the surface of
Shakespeare's rich characters. Nearly every scene pummels the audience
with clever pop culture references, but it all seems unfocused and
unentertaining.

Most of the performances are far too exaggerated and lacking in
nuance. But two actors rise above the din: Michael Jansen and Philip
J. Vonada. The Comedy of Errors usually requires a large
suspension of disbelief, as the actors picked for the roles of the
twins are usually so dissimilar that you just have to just assume that
the other characters really believe that these guys look alike. But
Jansen and Vonada, with their rotund bodies, bald heads, and resonant
voices, really do seem like they could be twins. And, though their
performances are broad, they borrow expertly from vaudeville
tradition; you'll see traces of Harpo Marx and Curly Howard in their
go-for-broke attitudes.

Villanova's Comedy of Errors is done with a lot of energy,
but it wears out its welcome quickly.

The Comedy of Errors runs through October 9, 2011, at
Villanova Theatre, located in Vasey Hall on the Villanova University
campus in Villanova, Pennsylvania. Tickets prices run from $21 to $25, with
discounts available for seniors, students and groups, and are
available by calling the box office at 610-519-7474, online at
www.theatre.villanova.edu, or by visiting the box office.